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Exactly what happened with this one is a bit difficult to deduce. The
unpublished version is wholly by Steve Ditko and would seem to have been
rejected for being cluttered, not only visually but in terms of too many plot
points. The published cover would appear to be a rare example of a Jack Kirby
patch job on another artist's work. The Spider-Man pose is by Kirby but
the rest is Ditko.
It looks like Ditko drew the first version and Stan Lee didn't
like it and had him draw a second
version. Then Stan didn't like whatever pose he'd put Spider-Man into
and Ditko wasn't available between the time this decision was made and when the
cover had to go off to press. The Spider-Man
figure was pencilled by Kirby and probably inked by Sol Brodsky.
What's especially interesting about this is that according to
legend, Kirby was the original artist on Spiderman (then unhyphenated) and after
Stan saw the first half-dozen pages Jack had drawn, he decided Jack didn't have
the right touch for the character he had in mind, and replaced him with Ditko.
Kirby always disputed this...and here we have one of several early covers where
Ditko drew Spider-Man and Stan had Jack redraw the material. (The first cover
Spider-Man appeared on, Amazing Fantasy #15 which is elsewhere in this
section, is another example.)
Also of note is that in both versions, Stan thought that "Learn
why J. Jonah Jameson really hates Spider-Man!" was a selling point. That
would suggest he was aware that the comic had developed some sort of steady
readership that, by then, was familiar with the characters and their conflicts.
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